American politics

Iran and Syria

Rebels and tyrants

MY FAVOURITE scene in "Argo" was the sequence towards the end of the film where Joe Stafford, the Farsi-speaking American-embassy officer (played by Scoot McNairy) pretending to be a film producer, explains the plot of the sci-fi movie he's supposedly making to the Iranian revolutionary guards interrogating him and his fellow Americans at the Tehran airport as they try to get out of the country. The movie, he explains, is about a country of simple people who are being oppressed by evil space aliens. The hero rebels and, in the end, the people gather together to fight their oppressors, overthrow the aliens and return the country to the rule of decency and justice. "Star Wars", in other words, but with a Middle Eastern backdrop. The clip is great because it depicts an American trying to tell a story that would be believable as a Hollywood film, and yet also acceptable to an Iranian revolutionary guard—one that would be politically persuasive to both an American and an Iranian audience. And part of what makes it stick in my head is that it's not really clear whether it's plausible, or whether it requires projecting an inaccurate American interpretive frame onto the Iranian guard. The language in which people talk about rebel uprisings against authoritarian oppressors is not the same everywhere as it is in America.

Take Syria. American empathy for the Syrian opposition kicked in the minute Syrians started peacefully protesting against Bashar al-Assad two years ago, and our sympathies remained engaged on the rebel side well into the violent phase of the conflict. The American public was far too war-weary to want to intervene in Syria, but most Americans instinctively hoped that the Assad regime would collapse as rapidly as possible and that the Free Syrian Army would win. ("Star Wars", but with a Middle Eastern backdrop.) It was not until the civil war settled into a murderous stalemate, and it became clear that many of the more successful rebel groups were (predictably) bloodthirsty Islamist zealots, that Americans began to wonder whether we really had a dog in this fight. As we've recognised that the rebels aren't going to win, our aims have shifted towards the problem of how to re-establish stability, to limit the carnage and the potential for spillover into an even broader Middle Eastern war. "Star Wars" doesn't really have a model for that problem.

Other countries looked at Syria differently. Primarily, of course, the fact that Russia and Iran backed the Assad regime from the start of the conflict is simply a matter of affiliation. Russia has legacy ties to its Syrian client, and the Russian state remains a big vainglorious beast that likes to assert its geopolitical importance when given an opportunity. For Iran, Syria is a counterweight to any Sunni resurgence in Iraq, as well as the conduit to Hizbullah, its client Shiite pseudo-state in Lebanon. Iran is still a young, strong post-revolutionary state that is seeking to expand its regional power, and it's not surprising that we see Iranian troops running the show in northern Syria.

But at another level, Russian and Iranian support for the Syrian regime is connected to the fact that Russians and Iranians have different instincts than Americans about the sources of political legitimacy. Americans instinctively feel that only democratically elected rulers are legitimate; the rest are tyrants, who should simply step down and hold elections in the face of mass demonstrations. (The inadequacy of this procedural American understanding of political legitimacy, in societies with weak governing institutions and strong ethnic or religious divisions, has been on display in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.) In contrast, in Russian political culture, or at least in one powerful strand of that culture, the state has a sort of autonomous legitimacy as the embodiment of the nation, in the face of which individual people may lack legitimacy. Many Russians speak of "vlast"—"power", "the powers that be"—as if it exists independently; they do not automatically assume that such power is illegitimate and must be overthrown.* As in China, you can look for the sources of this deference in a long history of catastrophic experiences during periods of state weakness.

Meawhile, in Iran, as in much (but by no means all) of the Muslim world, political legitimacy is connected to Islam. Islamist movements have been the main alternative to dictatorial governments across the Muslim world for decades, and in each country where dictators have been overthrown, Islamist parties have shown they will play a major role in the new government. The emergence of more stable, democratically representative and popular governments in the Middle East is guaranteed to lead to a stronger role for Islamist parties. Because Iran staged its Islamist revolution 35 years ago, its government is probably the most stable one in the Middle East outside of Israel, with the greatest degree of popular representation and the strongest, most predictable, most rule-bound system of political succession. Other countries in the region fear it in part because it has a radical, expansionist ideology, but also because its political system creates a balance of democratic and religious legitimacy that is much stronger and more stable than theirs.

Americans think the Islamist understanding of political legitimacy is morally wrong. Most of us don't believe in religiously sanctioned government; the small minority of Americans who do believe in religiously sanctioned government don't like Islam. At some point, however, we're going to have to acknowledge the fact that political Islam is an extremely powerful force all across the Middle East, that the most stable states there are the ones that enjoy Islamic religious legitimacy, and that there isn't much we can do to change that. If we're giving up on the vision of revolutionary democratic change sweeping the Middle East (which we probably should at this point), we need to look for alternative sources of stability. One source of stability when states collapse into chaos comes from powerful, stable regional powers who have both the interest and credibility to intervene. Such as Turkey, and Iran.

All of which is a way of agreeing with Fred Kaplan: Barack Obama would have to be crazy at this point not to take up the diplomatic overtures the Iranian government has been making over the past few weeks. We shouldn't have any illusions about what is on offer here. America and Iran are never going to be terribly friendly, or not on any foreseeable time horizon. We have commitments to Israel and the Persian Gulf states which we're not about to drop and the Iranians are not about to forget. They have a partially theocratic system of government that entails human-rights violations we're not about to overlook, and they're not about to abandon their support for Hizbullah or for the ideology of Shiite jihad. But we have by now given up on the illusion that our problems in the Middle East will be solved by "regime change". Indeed, the countries where the regimes change seem to be the ones where our problems now lie. We need to start approaching the regimes that aren't likely to change and trying to arrange a wary but peaceful standoff, because the level of carnage and chaos at the moment is more than we can handle.

* When Alexei Navalny, the promising alternative Russian politician, returned to Moscow by train in July to launch his campaign for mayor, he led his supporters in a repeated chant of "Mwi, zdes, vlast!"—"We, here, are the power!" It was analogous to "Yes, we can!", but with a different dimension. It was as though he needed first to convince his backers of their legitimacy, before they could gain the confidence to contend in the elections. This kind of thing always chokes me up.

"Argofuck yourself!"...Best line of the movie.
Unfortunately, our current foreign policy in regards to the Middle East seems to have devolved into utter farce and incompetence. Obama supported the ouster of our long time ally, Hosni Mubarak, and welcomed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to the White House as a legitimate government; this despite warnings that the Brotherhood was not as "moderate" as gullible dupes like Obama were eager to believe. In a move that only the Obama administration could not have forseen, the MB quickly turned totalitarian/Islamicist and became less popular than the stinky kid on the schoolbus, resulting in a coup d'etat and thousands of deaths that the US could only suck its thumb and watch. The result? The MB with Obama's seal of approval has been named a terroist organization by the courts in Egypt and outlawed.
Obama and company did not fare much better in Lybia, which is now a failed state with roving bands of rebels fighting each other like warlords for local control. Humanitarian conditions are probably dire there, due to the chaos that Obama and friends created, but don't expect any mainstream news coverage on this from the Clinton News Network and like as it would be embarrassing for their future queen in waiting.
Finally, we come to the Iran-Syria axis and the Obama administration's credulous admission that it thought Iran would somehow disown Syria for having used chemical weapons. Apparently, they missed the notice from Iran that it was planning to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. After much clownish posturing by Obama, a real world leader stepped in to take charge and change the dynamics of the situation in his country's favor. Now Obama wants to negotiate with Iran from a weakened position, fresh from the experience of having his milk money taken from him by Putin.
When Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated that 'Western countries are behaving in the Islamic world like a monkey with a grenade', we all know who he was really addressing.

Finally, an intelligent and considered article on Syria. So refreshing after the "Hit Him Hard" jingoism we have come to associate with this publication's coverage of the issue.
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Having said that, I have a little issue with "Most of us don't believe in religiously sanctioned government" - dollar bills have "In God we trust" printed on them and American presidents rarely make a speech that doesn't end with "God bless America", so many Americans obviously do believe in religiously sanctioned government.

One could achieve political stability and the legitimacy that flows from it by exterminating political minorities. We should always keep the end in mind here: A just society. An Islamic theocracy can be legitimate but without a commitment to religious pluralism it can never be completely just. We may not like it but an officially Islamic state can subsidize mosques, mandate Islam be taught in schools, and ban alcohol and pork and still be a just society if it permits non-Muslims to worship or not worship without persecution. After all, many Western liberal democracies subsidize churches, mandate religious education, and ban drugs and prostitution for Puritanical reasons yet permit Muslims to worship free from persecution. The US is an outlier in its militant secularism. I don't fear theocracy, even Muslim theocracy. I fear lack of religious pluralism.

Don't you just love the adorable little way they can't ever seem to get over the whole Cheney thing? Like a prepubescent girl unable to forget her first unrequited crush? Their reasoning always boils down to: "But, but,....Dick Cheney!Dick Cheney! And, and, ... Bush!", like that is supposed to excuse Obama from the worst economic recovery and foreign policy ever. Some need to grow up and stop living in the "Land of 2 election cycles ago".

Less religiously sanctioned, more Deity sanctioned. I am pretty sure that many Americans would be up in arms if an actual religion took the place of the nebulous "god" and they realized that it wasn't "their God" after all. The fact that God is open to interpretation is presumably how it has remained in a state that is constitutionally secular, plus the fact that it feeds into the whole American exceptionalism ethos.

The trouble with this article is that it is too American to take into account a couple of "inconvenient truths". The main of these truths is that the US and al-Qaeda are objective allies, and not only in Syria.

What we have seen for a number of years is an alignment of the Sunni powers close to Al-Qaeda, whose most powerful exponent is Saudi Arabia, with the US and Israel against a "Shiite" axis comprising Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Syria. Russia's geopolitical interest, as a power fighting Al-Qaeda-inspired and Saudi-financed rebellions on its territory, is clearly to help those friendly powers who are on the frontline of this conflict, such as the Syrian government.

I understand that it is tempting for exponents of US imperialism such as the Economist to pooh-pooh other powers as "vainglorious", but as analysis this kind of sneering has its limits.

Yes, but it's the motivations of "caring" that matter. The Palestinians have been used as pawns for generations by Arab states that don't give an actual bleep about them. The complete obsession of many Westerners with Israeli faults gives lie to their claims about not being anti-semitic. That particular issue needs less "caring", not more.
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For example, I read an op-ed recently by an Arab-Israeli in which he says the only thing keeping Palestinian "refugees" going is the "right of return" claim. Well, why are they different and better than all the refugees in the world who have been displaced? From the millions of Germans and other Europeans in the same years after WWII to the vast numbers of Christians driven out of Iraq by violence in the last decade? Will the 700k to 800k to 1 million Iraqi Christians have a refugee agency set up for them, funded mostly by the US of course, which will last for decades and will they be promised eventual "return" for generation upon generation, as though a UN resolution were a Biblical edict?
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Why exactly are the Palestinians the only people treated both so badly and so specially? Badly because they alone have been denied citizenship and rights in Arab countries because they are said to have no state at all and thus no rights of a citizen of any country. Badly and specially because they alone are singled out to remain permanent "refugees"? How long will that continue? Will the US be funding UNRWA in 2148?
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I think the "caring" issue is what drives that conflict. Religious caring mostly, meaning Muslim refusal to have Israel exist and their willingness to inflict harm on their fellow Muslim Palestinians and Western, mostly European racism that manifests as an obsession with everything the Jewish state does. See for example even the benign comments on many posts here that talk about what Israel wants and does as though it controls the US, as if the US has no interests of its own in projecting power in Syria but is instead bidden to do Israel's work. That kind of nonsense is nothing more than old Jew-hating conspiracy garbage surfacing in the Christian mind.

A Chronic Syrian Civil War is in the West's Best Interest:
-Syria and Iran are bankrupting themselves by wasting billions in foreign currency reserves in fighting an all out war for survival. They have squandered all their diplomatic good will, peace loving propaganda, Arab brotherhood, and religious integrity.
-Syria and Iran are alienating themselves from their neighboring Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and Turks.
-Minority Shia--only 10% of the Muslim world--are poking the other 90% Sunni in the eye with a stick.
-The Muslim world has become polarized into Sunni and Shia and it is threatening war. There is no room to hate Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhist or other infidels.
Muslim spleen is diverted from the West into rival Muslim Sects. Local Tribes. Rival Neighbors.
-Syria is no longer meddling with its neighbors with covert political terrorism as in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Iraq.
-Terrorists are concentrating their destruction in Syria and no longer targeting the West.
-Al Qaeda has down graded America as a target: The #1 target is now Syria.
-Russia is throwing rubles down a rathole with no hope of repayment.
-Russia has squandered its good will with the EU, Arabs and America on its insistence in backing a madman brutal dictator.
-Russian intransigence in the UN, has made US and China closer. And EU and China closer. China no longer stands with intransigent UN Security Council Vetoes.
-Turkey is no longer boasting about its success story of a being a bridge of modernity and Islam. It is very fearful of its neighbors: Syria, Kurdistan and Russia. And it is cooperating more with NATO, the EU and the US.
-Terrorists are killing themselves in brutal combat. A generation of terrorists are being annihilated .It is the world’s biggest Terrorist Graveyard of the 21st Century.
-Hezzbollah is being decimated fighting seasoned Al Qaeda fighters with honed bombing, sniper and terrorism skills. Fighting a counter insurgency takes far more discipline than conducting a guerilla war. And it is costly to be the ‘good guy’.
-Hezzbollah is ignoring the conflict with Israel leading to record low conflict incidents and no rocket attacks.
-There is a youth time bomb in the Muslim world that was the basis for the Arab Spring. War is consuming young lives. War is population control by other means.
-Arab conflicts and instability has generated record trade in farm commodity produce. And arms. The commodity export markets are BOOMING.
-There is no illusion of Peaceful Islam: 1000 Syrians are dying violently each week.
-There is no illusion of Universal Muslim Brotherhood: 5 million Syrian refugees are being ignored by rich Arab Sheiks in nearby neighbors.
-Iran's Nuclear program is held up by diverted resources to supply Hezzbolah and Syria. Syria has achieved what the UN and IAEF could never do.
-The Muslims are killing other Muslims. That is tragic.
But it is far more acceptable to the Muslim world than having Christians or Westerners being accused of killing innocent, peace-loving Muslims.
-Cost is less important in a proxy war.
Bottomless funding from oil: Russia and Iran on one side.
Gulf Emirates and Saudi Princes on the other side.
However the cost in blood, life and limb will be the Syrian People.
The Lebanese civil war lasted over 20 years.
Iraq civil war will continue for its second decade.
The Afghanistan War is lasting generations.
In recent geopolitics, Muslims only become brothers in uniting to fight foreign Crusaders.
I do not think this trade off is worthwhile.
In the Mideast, conflicts tend to last for generations.
This Syrian Civil War will be generational.
And chronic.
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Not only will the West be ineffectual in stemming the Syrian Civil War, doing nothing is in the West's best interest.
And doing 'something' will make it an international cause for world wide terrorists for generations of embittered angry Muslims.
Thoughtfully doing nothing is sometimes the wisest action.
This problem can only be solved in the Muslim World...or left to burn itself out in natural course.
I assure you it will end...We just don't know when: 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, 100 years.
Don't fight Syria when it is fighting itself in bloody, brutal, savage warfare everyday:
No Geneva War Conventions. No Human Rights. No prisoners, just prompt execution.
The War with Iran goes through Syria.
The US should leave Syria in peace. Syria is punishing itself more viciously than Western armies could every do.
Now Iran wants peace. Iran is being sandwiched by internal and external pressures and is on the precipice of breaking down. The economy is in a Great Depression. Any delay is killing them.
Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.
For the West, doing nothing is winning. At best go slow.

Yeah, I was going to contrast theocratic Iran's commitment to religious pluralism (or Malta's, for that matter), however far it may fall short of the ideal, to secular North Korea's lack of. Of course, one could claim that North Korea is a theocracy with Juche being their state religion. But then you could also say that liberal democracy is a religion. I would argue that a theocracy requires rule by "revealed truths" as opposed to common reason, however wrong the proffered reason may be. Revealed truths can be pretty benign. "No pork." Religious persecution, on the other hand, is always deeply unjust.

A useful dialogue on the limits of influence where there is no common ground. However, to speak of religiously legitimized governance without bringing up repression belies the fact that there is tyranny everywhere in the Islam world. Ask any woman free enough and courageous enough to speak her mind.
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"Islamist movements have been the main alternative to dictatorial governments across the Muslim world for decades." Wow, who came up with this sweeping statement? One could as easily have written "Islamist movement have been one of the main dictatorial governments across the Muslim world for decades." The repression and tyranny in most Muslim regimes is equal if not worse (because it is in the name of religion) than that subjected by dictators.
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" Americans instinctively feel that only democratically elected rulers are legitimate; the rest are tyrants". This statement (once again) places America and by proxy the West on higher moral ground than other nations. It is bulls$%t. Two examples from many, the legitmacy of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia is unquestioned in the face of enormous tyranny and repression because they have oil. Chavez's legitimacy in Venezuela was continuously questioned even though he won democratic elections (at least in the beginning) because his politics were antithetical to America's political agenda for the region. It is true that America and Western leaders like to proselytize about moral legitimacy to govern to make themselves look better, however IMHO they have almost as much blood on their hands as any other leader, democratically elected or not. The sooner it is accepted that realpolitik of national interest is what truly drives all leaders, the more realistic Americans and westerners can view their own foreign policies.

As the post notes, "we have by now given up on the illusion that our problems in the Middle East will be solved by "regime change".

And I would hope we've given up on the even more nonsensical notion that all the woes of the region depend on Israel and on "solving" the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Events in Egypt, for example, show that Palestine, which literally borders Egypt, is little more than a sideshow in their national ... I almost wrote tragedy but time will tell. Tunisia & Libya, the repression in Bahrain, the hideous war in Syria and, as the post gets at a bit, the great divide between the Sunni side led by the Saudis and the Shia side led by Iran are NOT related to Israel.

I agree. This is also an area where the marketplace of ideas doesn't seem to function. Countries that tolerate religious minorities almost always prosper at the expense of countries that don't. Instead of promoting openness, that seems always to convince the rulers that religious minorities can't be trusted.

I am of the opinion that Obama knew exactly what he was doing when he stood aside and let Morsi take power, and that he and his supporters had to be given full freedom to show their true colors -- free of outside interference.

Really, what are his intervention options? Think he could have made a statement of support and a nice speech, and Morsi's supporters would have decided to go back home? "Yup, Americans don't like this, let's call it off."

We've taken the option of early intervention plenty of times in the past, and the outcomes haven't exactly covered us in glory. If you succeed in the intervention, you make a Dictator, a Martyr, and a smoldering insurgency. If you fail, you make Iran.

Regardless of our actions, the Military is going to end up shooting people, but it's best if it's not seen as something that's being ordered at the behest of Western powers. In the absence of any good options, all we can do is to get as little of it on ourselves as possible.

I forgot to add that the essentialist cultural characterisations that marr this article are a classical locus of imperialist propaganda - see Edward Said's "Orientalism".
Also, the US' supposed democratical leanings do not seem to stand in the way of its unconditional support for the world's most undemocratic and illiberal countries, such as Saudi Arabia, which makes Iran look positively enlightened.